The Politics of Motherhood: British Writing and Culture, 1680-1760. Toni Bowers.Evelina. Frances Burney and Kristina Straub, ed.Reading Daughters' Fictions, 1709-1834: Novels and Society from Manley to Edgeworth. Caroline Gonda.The History of Sir George Ellison. Sarah Scott and Betty Rizzo, ed.

1997 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 265-267
Author(s):  
Amanda Gilroy
Keyword(s):  
Frances Burney ◽  
Sarah Scott ◽  
History Of

Frances Burney and the Art of Accident

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-441
Author(s):  
Katarina O'Briain
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Frances Burney ◽  
History Of The Novel ◽  
Late Capitalism ◽  
Unexpected Events ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Human Condition

Abstract This article argues that Frances Burney's long, diffuse works of fiction develop an ethics of accident within the history of the novel. Whereas critics from the eighteenth century to today have privileged “art”—in the sense of careful, deliberate skill and conduct—as a crucial marker of human character, Burney insists on filling her novels with a succession of unexpected events and a multitude of characters surprised by their own actions. By refusing to treat accident as a mistake to be improved upon—in the realm of either characterological conduct or authorial craft—Burney posits an ethics of the novel that treats matters of chance and modes of depleted agency as central aspects of the human condition rather than as markers of moral or aesthetic failure. Setting Burney's texts within ascendant modes of economy and finance in the eighteenth century, the article suggests that this ethics marks a key change within the rise of the novel that continues well into late capitalism.

The Social Origins and Provenance of the English Bishops during the Reign of Edward II

1959 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 51-79
Author(s):  
K. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Early Career ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Origins ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
The Social ◽  
Complete Study ◽  
History Of

During the last twenty or twenty-five years medieval historians have been much interested in the composition of the English episcopate. A number of studies of it have been published on periods ranging from the eleventh to the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. A further paper might well seem superfluous. My reason for offering one is that most previous writers have concentrated on analysing the professional circles from which the bishops were drawn, and suggesting the influences which their early careers as royal clerks, university masters and students, secular or regular clergy, may have had on their later work as bishops. They have shown comparatively little interest in their social background and provenance, except for those bishops who belonged to magnate families. Some years ago, when working on the political activities of Edward II's bishops, it seemed to me that social origins, family connexions and provenance might in a number of cases have had at least as much influence on a bishop's attitude to politics as his early career. I there fore collected information about the origins and provenance of these bishops. I now think that a rather more careful and complete study of this subject might throw further light not only on the political history of the reign, but on other problems connected with the character and work of the English episcopate. There is a general impression that in England in the later middle ages the bishops' ties with their dioceses were becoming less close, and that they were normally spending less time in diocesan work than their predecessors in the thirteenth century.

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